


As Everything Descends

by melo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Graphic Description, Hallucinations, M/M, References to Hale fire, Serious Injuries, Violence, be careful, i am serious about how graphic the description is, some readers have found this triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:24:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melo/pseuds/melo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t go,” Stiles says. The flames kiss the round of his shoulder, and his voice breaks with the sound of crackling timber. “Please. Don’t leave me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Everything Descends

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I haven't had time to update any of my other things, but this has just been sitting around, so I thought I might as well share.
> 
> Title from Dear Hunter's "Life and Death"
> 
>  **UPDATE:** Check out [Jinxy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxy/pseuds/Jinxy)'s excellent podfic of [As Everything Descends](http://archiveofourown.org/works/835771)! 
> 
> **WARNINGS:** Some readers have told me that they find this triggering. For that I am sorry, I didn't realize it was that bad. For a detailed rundown of what to expect see spoilers in the [ end notes.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/736179#work_endnotes)

This again.

The door swings open on its own like it always does, rusty hinges oddly quiet. The weathered wood of the porch makes no noise, and neither do the dusty floorboards beyond the threshold.

It’s brighter inside than outside. It’s warmer.

He doesn’t need to step far into the house. The wide entryway to the sitting room is right there, limned in red and gold.

Stiles stands in the middle of the room as he always does, ash drifting up towards the ceiling like a thousand tiny moths taking flight.

Stiles looks up at him, eyes reflecting the flames licking up his arm.

“Don’t go,” Stiles says.

Derek wakes up.

 

* * *

 

“Are you even listening?” Erica pouts. Her expression is exaggerated, trying to cover her concern with annoyance.

Derek swirls the amber liquor in his tumbler. It tastes like shit and does nothing for him. “Yeah,” he says, because there’s no other answer.

“Okay,” Erica says doubtfully, but there’s nothing she can do. She continues with what she’d been saying. “Well, all we really have to do is finalize the furniture. I know you left the interior design up to Lydia, but are you sure you want everything so... modern? Seems like it’s wasted on us. We’re just going to throw our dirty socks on whatever chic number she picks out–“

“It doesn’t matter. I can afford it.”

Erica frowns and fiddles with the label on her beer. The beer smells as flat and bitter as the rest of the bar. Derek doesn’t understand why she insists on these weekly outings when none of the pack can appreciate alcohol.

Erica rubs absently at the lipstick marking the mouth of her beer bottle. “That’s not why I’m asking. I just... I see your Camaro, and your leather jacket, and your monochrome wardrobe, and yeah okay that’s fine, but I thought you’d go for more of a...”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “More of a?”

Erica hesitates. “Homey. Something homey. For the house, y’know. Like a wooden kitchen table instead of that glass thing Lydia must’ve nicked from some art gallery. Or maybe even some floral print couch that’s as ugly as it is comfy...”

Derek lets the silence stretch before he says, “Lydia already picked out the colour palette. I’m not going to be the one who tells her to start over. Are you?”

“Hell no.” Erica laughs. She’s getting better at that. Derek almost misses the uncomfortable edge in it this time.

“Then it’s all fine,” Derek says.

“Yeah. It’s all fine,” Erica echoes quietly.

Derek does her a favour and pretends he doesn’t see how she watches his hands tremble around his drink. He knocks the rest back.

Still tastes like shit.

 

* * *

 

The door swings open on its own like it always does, noiseless despite the rust caking the hinges. The warped porch doesn’t creak under his feet, and neither do the hardwood floors beyond the threshold. The hardwood used to gleam with the rich colour of its grain, but the varnish has long burned away and the planks are deformed from long ago heat.

It’s brighter inside than outside. It’s warmer.

He doesn’t need to step far into the house. The sitting room is right there; its arching doorway is traced with a flickering glow.

Stiles stands in the middle of the room as he always does. Ash coats the shoulders of his hoodie in a gradient like the colour’s draining out of him. The ash bleaches his hair and his face. It sits in the long sweep of his eyelashes like snow.  

Stiles looks up at him, eyes reflecting the flames licking up his arm. The flames birth moth after moth. The moths flit up to perch on the ceiling.

“Don’t go,” Stiles says. The flames kiss the round of his shoulder, and his voice breaks with the sound of crackling timber. “Please. Don’t leave me.”

Derek wakes up.

 

* * *

 

The new house is in the suburbs. In Lydia’s neighbourhood, actually. It seems counterintuitive to place a werewolf den in the middle of all that humanity, but it’s better, really.

Lydia’s neighbourhood is filthy rich. Every house – mansion – is ensconced in its own gated property with driveways that are long enough to be considered small streets. Every house has its own ironclad private security that’s mostly automated, so there’s no need for a neighbourhood watch. People in this area don’t give a shit about each other’s business, and this works in Derek’s favour.

Here, they are guaranteed privacy. The fences are tall and lined with thick hedges. The property is large enough to accommodate some running around and training. They have to be more careful about the noise levels, but that doesn’t outweigh the benefits of the new location. Here, enemies would have to be stupid to attack them. Anything supernatural would risk making a spectacle of itself with photographic evidence to boot, and though the activities of the past year would suggest otherwise, anything touched by the supernatural knows better than to reveal their true nature to the public eye. Here, they are not isolated, unlike how they’d been at the old Hale house. If anything gets out of control, eyewitnesses are only minutes away. There could be reporters or cops. Firefighters or paramedics could reach them in time.

When the new house is finally complete and furnished, the pack gathers together for a celebratory dinner. Isaac and Boyd – those who know how to use more than a microwave – get to work breaking in the new kitchen appliances and christening the counters with spilt pasta sauces and stray sprigs of herbs.

They sit down together at the long dining table, everything on the tabletop arranged into symmetrical perfection by Lydia; even the angles between the cutleries are precise.

The food is good. Everyone says as much at some point or another. Compliments are given to the chefs, and to Lydia for arranging the get together. Lydia preens and reminds everyone about her work on the decor as well. Erica teasingly tells her it’s a passable job, making Lydia huff and cut her steak into tinier pieces, a smug smile tucked into the corner of a her glossy lips.

The pack is relaxed. They are more comfortable with each other than they’ve ever been, despite the shit they’ve gone through, or perhaps because of it. Even Jackson looks less pinched, though that might have to do with the environment more than anything. Jackson looks like he belongs for once, probably because he’s sitting in a room which could easily be implanted into his own modern and minimalistic house.

It’s not until the pack is piled together in front of the flatscreen that Derek realizes just how perfect the new house has been made. There are only six chairs in the dinning set. The couches in front of the television have been designed to seat six individuals too.

Derek’s hands clench convulsively with pain. When he glances at Lydia, he sees that she is already watching him like she can read his mind. Her eyes flick down to the cloth wrappings around his palms, then back to the flatscreen. No one else seems to have noticed.

Derek tries to lose himself in the movie they’re watching, but it might as well be static and snow. He feels cold despite the warm shoulders pressed against his own, and he aches down to his bones.

 

* * *

 

His parents used to argue about having a rug in the entryway of the house. His mother would say it was unnecessary and would only serve to obscure the lovely hardwood; not to mention the slipping hazard a rug would be on such shiny, polished floors. His father would say that the rug was an heirloom, a piece of history they could walk on. And they were werewolves, so it wasn’t like a little slip would kill them.

It was a friendly argument, but his mother eventually put her foot down and the rug stayed rolled in the basement. When Derek came back to Beacon Hills, he laid it in the entryway because it looked better than the charred planks the floor had been reduced to.

The rug muffles his footsteps as he approaches the sitting room where it’s bright and warm.   

Stiles stands in the middle of the room as he always does. The only colour is in his eyes, and in the fire which rings the room and springs up from the cracked stone of his blackened arm. The veins in his arm are veins of hot iron, and the glow of it is as steady as the wing beats of the thousand moths perched on the ceiling. Every flutter fans the flames higher.

Stiles looks up at Derek, eyes reflecting the flames licking up his arm. He takes a step towards Derek, and where his foot lands the wood crackles and blackens.

“Don’t leave me,” Stiles says. The flames kiss the round of his shoulder where Derek used to kiss, and his voice breaks like it did when his bones broke. “Please, Derek, stay with me.”

Stiles reaches out with his burning hands, but the circle closes and the fire consumes.

Derek wakes up.

 

* * *

 

“You have to let go eventually,” Lydia says after inviting herself into Derek’s bedroom.

It’s sometime in the middle of the afternoon and Derek is still lying in bed. He’s naked under the covers, but Lydia doesn’t seem to care. She stands over him with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed.

Derek groans and resists wiping a hand down his face. His stubble has probably become a full beard by now. Derek doesn’t need to bring his hands out from under the covers to check, and the way Lydia’s nose wrinkles suggests he smells about as fresh as he feels.

“Get out,” Derek says and closes his eyes again. He’s not trying to sleep, but he doesn’t want to look at Lydia in all her perfectly groomed, perfectly controlled glory.

“I mean it, Derek. This isn’t healthy.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Derek grits out.

“Then let go of it.”

“For the last time, I can’t!” Derek explodes, bolting upright and throwing the covers to the floor.

Lydia neatly sidesteps the mess, and Derek doesn’t miss the way her eyes dart to his arms, but Derek’s arms are still wrapped in cloth bandages and hidden from her prying gaze.

Derek doesn’t bother putting on anything to hide his nakedness, and stomps to the bathroom. He refuses to hobble like the old, arthritic thing his body has become. He relishes the agony in his stiff hands and takes pride in their steady grip on his toothbrush. He brushes with enough force to make his gums bleed and dye the froth of his toothpaste pink.

He looks rabid.

Derek watches Lydia watch him in the mirror. She’s followed him into the bathroom and is unfazed by his vulgar spitting and scratching. She leans against the frosted glass of the shower stall and waits.

“Are you going to watch while I piss?” Derek says when he’s finished rinsing his mouth.

“Are you going to piss while I’m watching?” Lydia shoots back.

They stare at each other in the mirror, neither willing to back down.

Lydia wins because Derek’s bladder isn’t up to the task. He feels dehydrated like he’s sweated himself dry in the night. He ducks down to take a drink from the tap. When he straightens, another look in the mirror tells him nothing except that he should shave, so Derek pulls out his straight razor and shaving cream and gets to work.

“What do you mean you can’t?” Lydia asks after some time, prying like she always does. She’s like grit trapped under a scab, festering in Derek’s wounds.

“I mean _I can’t_.”

“I know you never graduated from high school, but surely your vocabulary isn’t that pitiful.”

“Fuck off, why do you even care?”

“I don’t really.” Lydia shrugs. “I just can’t condone this much stupidity dwelling in one room.”

“ _Stupidity?”_ Derek repeats, incredulous. “Is that what you think this is the result of? Stupidity?”

Lydia pushes off the shower stall to stand straighter. “Yes.”

Derek almost flays himself with the razor, his hand twitches so violently.

“If anyone in this room knows nothing, it’s _you_ ,” Derek snarls. He throws his razor angrily into the sink, careless of how the blade snaps off and clatters to the edge of the drain. “You weren’t there. You weren’t there, and even if you were, you could never understand.”

“Explain it and I will understand.”

Derek wipes off the remaining shaving cream with the back of his hand. He looks like a mess, but he doesn’t give a shit.

He’s angry. He’s so _fucking angry,_ and it hurts – _hurts_ – all the goddamned time, and he’s tired too. He’s so tired. He wants to rip something to shreds; sink his teeth into – into _flesh_ – until his jaws meet with a vicious clack of bone against bone. He wants to sever his nerves and numb the fire in his skin at last. He wants to curl up in a ball and hide himself in the mud and leaves; lie buried beneath the broken foundation of his home, tucked in under blanket after blanket of ash.

He wants all of these things so badly that it tears him apart in four directions, because it’s not enough that he’s like this. A part of him wants to _stay_ like this, holding on to that anger and that pain and that fatigue, because he deserves it. He deserves it and he doesn’t know how to live any other way. He doesn’t know how to live.

It’s because he’s so caught up in this torrent that he doesn’t register Lydia’s approach. That, and he thought she was smart enough to know not to approach a werewolf who’s practically vibrating with rage.

With one calculated tug, Lydia pulls at the wrappings binding Derek’s right arm and hand. The plain cloth unravels to reveal the taut cords of muscles that seem to have frozen with years of unending tension. The veins in his arms are like polluted rivers, each tributary thick and raised, clogged with inky blackness.

Derek snarls and feels the planes of his face shift. His fingers curl convulsively, making the bones stand out like the flesh has fallen away.

Derek can smell Lydia’s fear even though her expression doesn’t change.   

It’s typical of her to force his hand. He doesn’t want to _explain_ anything. He doesn’t want to _let it go._ She won’t understand – _doesn’t_ understand – and he doesn’t _want_ her to understand. This pain, these marks, this _agony_ snaking through his veins; they’re _his_ because they were _Stiles’_.

And that’s all Derek has left of him.   

 

* * *

 

He’s covered in ash. He doesn’t understand how there can be so much of it, but it’s everywhere. It’s in his nose and his mouth and his eyes, rising up from the floor in swarms intent on suffocating him. The scent of burning is sick and familiar and choking. The heat seems to replace what’s left of the air. It blisters his skin and cooks him from the inside out with every inhale. His body sweats and his skin seems to ripple with the effort of constant healing.

There were times when he used to torture himself, wondering what it had been like for his family. He’s starting to learn now, more thoroughly than he ever thought he would. He would welcome it, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s not alone.

Derek coughs and shouts again. “Stiles!”

Stiles is barely conscious. His long eyelashes flutter. They look like sets of tiny moth wings, speckled as they are with the rain of pale ash. The slits of his eyes gleam with the reflected light of the flames encircling them, but no tears leak out; they’re licked up by the heat before they can track down his face.

Derek doesn’t know what to do. Those bastards did something to Stiles. They bound Stiles inside this circle, and no matter how many times Derek tries to break them out, Stiles remains trapped. He wonders if this is how Stiles felt every time Derek was trapped by mountain ash, only this is worse, because Derek doesn’t know if he can break the line.  

The symbols burned into the floorboards crackle and blacken further. The fire seems to jump inwards like a mouth closing by increments.

Derek pulls Stiles tighter to his body. He cradles Stiles’ broken and burnt arm between them. He knows the pressure and friction must feel like agony to the raw flesh, so he takes away the pain. He lets his veins run black with it; lets the hurt sharpen his senses as he searches frantically for a way out.

“Stiles, stay with me,” Derek repeats, over and over.

The symbols crackle and the fire jumps inwards again. Derek shrinks further, wrapping himself around Stiles like he’s trying to compress them into a single point in time and space.

They’re dying.

Derek takes every ounce of pain from Stiles’ body. It feels like he’s injecting molten iron straight into his veins, but he doesn’t stop. Derek lays a trembling kiss to the curve of Stiles’ shoulder.

There’s an explosion or – something.

Derek blinks the white light out of his eyes. He hurts all over. He hurts so much that it all blurs into nothing. He feels like he’s dreaming fever dreams.

Someone is – someone is screaming at him. Scott. Scott is screaming at him. He’s saying something.

 _Stiles._ Scott is shaking Derek and his mouth is filled with fangs. _How could you leave him_?

But Derek didn’t. Derek didn’t leave Stiles.

 _How could you leave him_?

Derek blinks up at Scott. Derek looks past him to the shape of the burning house – his home – and he looks down at his empty arms. There is nothing in them except for pain, permanent and unending.

Derek doesn’t wake up.

 

* * *

 

He’s okay, really. He’s functional. Except for the day he spends in bed every now and then feeling sorry for everything he’s ever done, Derek is fine.

He has a job at a garage that keeps him occupied from nine to five, five days a week. He keeps busy in the evenings by cooking meals for the pack or cleaning the house obsessively, even though he’s never cared for tidiness. During the nights that he can’t sleep, he patrols his territory.

He doesn’t piss on anything to mark his territory, but the memory of Stiles’ shit-eating grin eases the burn in his arms and hands for a while, shifting the pain to somewhere empty in his chest.

On the weekends, he makes sure the pack trains. They’ve grown into themselves over the years, but that doesn’t mean Derek’s going to let them slack. He finds that without constant practice, they backslide into their old human ways, forgetting that they can smell and hear just as well as they can see.

He becomes so absorbed in the training of the pack that there’s never enough time for his own training. Though being a born werewolf gives him the advantage of natural mastery over his body, he still requires maintenance. It just doesn’t occur to him until he’s on the floor, grappling with a hunter.

This shouldn’t be a problem. Derek’s a fucking Alpha, and this hunter is just a man. Sure, a huge, bulky man that’s larger even than Boyd, but still just a man. Just a man who is winning.

The hunter is straddling Derek’s middle, keeping him pinned with the threat of a huge-ass claymore. The claymore is positioned like a guillotine ready to sever Derek’s head from his body. The blade of the sword is already wet with Derek’s blood, slippery from where it cuts deeply into Derek’s palms. Derek’s hands are the only thing keeping the blade away from his neck, but his wrists tremble under the pressure.

The hunter has the advantage, pressing down on the hilt of the claymore with his right hand; left hand encased in a tough leather gauntlet, protecting him so he can apply pressure directly to the blade edge. The hunter’s hands mirror Derek’s, pushing down where Derek pushes up, but with none of the damage that Derek is taking. Derek’s hands slide along the blade edge, unable to retain a sturdy grip. The struggle is slowly carving the flesh from his palms.

It should be child’s play to throw the hunter off, but Derek can’t. Derek feels old and weak and frail. Everything is always hurting, so the blade cutting into him barely registers as more than a focused pressure on his palms. The cloth wrappings around his hands and arms have been dyed a rich red. The wrappings are frayed under the blade and coming loose.

The hunter glances at Derek’s inky veins in surprise, but only for a second. The hunter doesn’t know why Derek’s veins are the colour they are, but he recognizes illness when he sees it. He recognizes weakness, and with renewed vigor, the hunter puts his full weight behind the claymore.

The hunter sneers when the blade skids on Derek’s bones, lodging in the joints of Derek’s fingers.

Derek bites back a scream as his fingers are cut off.

In the split second before the blade descends on Derek’s neck, Derek pushes his bloody palms into the hunter’s wrists at an angle, setting the claymore off course so Derek can _just_ cheat death. In that same moment, he twists and curls his body. By the time the claymore strikes the concrete with a sharp clang, Derek is curled on his side under the hunter and levering an elbow into the hunter’s gut.

Derek sends the hunter rolling head first into his own claymore, but the hunter is trained. The hunter controls the roll and flings himself safely over the blade, curling with the claymore so that he ends up several feet away from Derek with the weapon still in hand.

Derek springs into a crouch to face the hunter. He ignores the severed fingers scattered on the floor like bloody worms. He keeps his hands raised near his chest like he’s ready to throw punches, because he _is._ Fingers be damned. Derek can almost hear Stiles snarling in his ear.

Derek grins and the hunter’s stance falters. This guy is going to get the bitch slap of the century.

Derek feels free like he hasn’t in ages. He is in constant pain, but the physicality of this pain is different. This is good. This is _great._ It’s sharp and real; external and lasting. This is familiar. He knows how to handle it. Most importantly, he doesn’t care if he gets more of it.

Derek has learned a lot about pain in his lifetime. The hunter could never even begin to understand, and that’s why he loses.

Derek launches himself straight at the hunter. He doesn’t give a shit about the claymore positioned to skewer him through the gut. He doesn’t care that the blade is probably laced with aconite. He just goes for it.

The hunter has no time to prepare and anticipate – not that Derek’s move would’ve been anticipated. It’s too crazy – too _suicidal_ – for any hunter to expect. After all, aren’t werewolves beasts? Wouldn’t beasts gnaw off their own limbs to live?

Derek manages not to impale himself on the claymore, and he’s rewarded by the satisfying snap of his jaws closing, fangs clacking together like joints popping from vigorous use. It feels good to stretch after such a long time confined.

After, Derek can read the confusion in the eyes of the dead hunter, tinted a bit with arterial spray. The hunter’s blood tastes as vile as the shit they serve at Erica’s favourite bar; even worse because it’s hot and runny, and it’s going to dry tacky on his face and make him look like a clown.

Derek wipes as much of the blood from his chin as he can, but it’s an impossible task when blood continues to pump from the stumps of his fingers.

He gives up and squats by his scattered fingers. He’s lost everything but his thumbs, and they’re not going to regenerate. He’s a werewolf, not a goddamned newt.

He’s trying to work out the logistics of reattaching his severed digits when the pack finally bursts onto the scene. They stumble into each other as they come to a sudden stop at the mouth of the alley. Derek wonders what kind of picture he makes, a severed head sitting behind him, and a pile of severed fingers in front of him.

“Erica,” Derek says, and Erica’s wide eyes jump to Derek’s. “Pick up my fingers.” Erica nods numbly. She seems reluctant to leave Boyd and Isaac’s sides, but she goes and does as Derek asks.

The pack follows Derek’s orders wordlessly. Isaac and Boyd are left to clean up the mess. Erica drives Derek and his fingers to Deaton’s.

Deaton’s never been one for small talk, but even he seems more subdued when he greets Derek at the door of the clinic. He ushers Derek and Erica inside, and immediately sets to work reattaching Derek’s fingers. It’s as simple as cleaning the wounds, strapping Derek’s hands flat against the surgical table, and carefully lining the severed edges up. A few stitches are used to keep everything in place. Within the next three hours, Derek’s hands should be as good as new.

When Deaton leaves the room to clean his tools, Erica finally finds her tongue. “What happened? It was just one hunter but you... and he...” Erica stares at Derek unseeingly. Derek doesn’t really understand her reaction. They’ve seen plenty of gore over the years.

“I ended the threat.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen you end it like– like _that_. You. You– did you _bite his head off_? And Jesus, Derek, your fucking _fingers_.”

“They’re fine.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but also,” Erica’s gaze sharpens on Derek’s hands where they’re pressed palm-down against the steel of the surgical table, “they’re clean.”

“Clean?” Derek echoes. He looks down at his hands. He twitches his fingers, testing how the tendons are reconnecting. And then he sees what Erica means.

His veins are invisible beneath his skin. The black taint is gone.

“Derek?” Erica says. Derek doesn’t know what his face looks like to warrant Erica’s cautious tone. “This is– this is good. No more pain, right?”

“Right,” Derek agrees woodenly. He feels unmoored.

Erica lays a comforting hand on Derek’s shoulder.

It’s a struggle not to show her how it feels to lose eight fingers.

 

 * * *

 

That night when the door swings open and Derek steps inside, it is warm and bright, but Stiles is not there.

 

* * *

 

Derek’s fingers heal with no complications. His hands are as good as new.

The pack congratulates him for finally _letting go_. Their smiles are just a little more genuine. They’re just a little less hesitant before they speak to him. Erica stops tiptoeing around him. Lydia stops pushing at him, subtly or overtly. Because Lydia doesn’t feel the need to rub reality in his face, she buys the armchair that completes the furniture set in the living room. There are now seven seats in front of the flatscreen.

Derek goes to his job during the weekdays, as usual. He cleans the house and cooks for the pack. On weekends he trains the pack. He even takes the time to train himself with long runs through the woods. Just like old times. He needs it. His body feels foreign and too light like he’ll float away, unanchored to the earth.

It’s when he comes back from a run feeling faint and short of breath that he sees Stiles.

Stiles is sprawled across the new armchair, loose-limbed and eyes hooded. Derek freezes in the doorway at the sight of him. Stiles looks so thin and pale, his eyelids bruised with fatigue. Stiles reeks of frailty and wilting flowers and charred flesh.

Stiles says, “I’ve been waiting for so long, you asshole,” like his posture doesn’t make it obvious. “Derek.”

Derek stumbles forward until he’s close enough to touch Stiles. If Derek reaches out Stiles will be his to hold. Stiles is already sprawled in the armchair, and he would slide perfectly into Derek’s arms; he would fit perfectly into the cradle of Derek’s body like he’d never left.

Stiles’ eyes track Derek’s movements, an amber gleam beneath long lashes. He says, “You asked me to stay with you.”

Derek nods mutely.

“How could you say that and not _stay_ _with_ _me?_ ”

Derek flinches like Stiles has struck him. Hell, Derek would’ve preferred a beating to the long, sad look that Stiles fixes on him.

 _I’m sorry,_ Derek wants to say. It’s there on the tip of his tongue, each syllable a prisoner banging on the bars of his teeth.

Stiles says, “It hurts again. Just a little though,” and looks down at his arm, at the black crust peeling back to reveal melted muscle and tendon, raw and red as ground meat.

 _I’m sorry,_ Derek wants to say. He’s choking with it, and he’s not sure if he’s keeping the words in or trying to spit them out.  

“I thought it meant something, but I guess not.” Stiles hugs his burnt arm tightly to his chest. The pressure squeezes a thin line of blood from the cracks in the skin and Stiles winces, leaking ashes from the corners of his eyes. Stiles draws his long limbs in, curling up on the seat of the armchair like he’s trying to compress himself into a tiny point in space. He turns his head to face Derek.

Stiles asks, “If I asked you to stay with me, would you stay?”

 _Yes,_ Derek wants to say, but it’s not that easy.

They stare silently at each other for a long time.

 Stiles looks and sounds very young when he asks, “Stay with me?”

 _Yes,_ Derek wants to say.

He wakes up before his tongue can shape the word.

 

* * *

 

It gets worse.

Derek stops waking up in bed. Sometimes he wakes up standing in the doorway of the living room. Sometimes he wakes up standing on the porch of the house. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the woods.

Twice, he woke up seated on the edge of the bathtub next to his bedroom. His soap and shampoo had been knocked into the tub. The water was still running and the tub had overflowed with soapy water, slicking the tile floor like a film of gasoline.

Once, he woke up curled on the blackened earth where his home used to stand.

Always, in the dreams or hallucinations or whatever before he wakes up, there is Stiles. Stiles lounging on the seventh seat in the living room. Stiles perched on the edge of the porch, chin propped on the railing and legs twined through the balusters. Stiles holding his hand as they walk through the woods. Stiles burning. Stiles dying.

Derek doesn’t know why he’s haunted so vividly. After his family died he had reoccurring dreams of fire, but he never walked in his sleep, and he certainly never hallucinated while awake.

“Derek,” Lydia snaps, growing impatient. It’s hard to hear her when Stiles is mumbling in Derek’s ear.

“What?” Derek asks absently. He’s lying on the couch with an open newspaper stretched above him. Stiles is tucked into Derek’s side like a curl of smoke, reading the newspaper aloud, yawning between articles as he would on lazy Sundays.

“Your arm,” Lydia says, gesturing at her own bicep.

Derek glances down at his bicep, but Stiles’ hands are folded over the muscle and Derek can’t see a thing. Derek is loathe to move when he’s so comfortable. “What?” he repeats annoyed.

Lydia huffs, and strides over to the couch, the red waves of her hair flashing in the hazy sunlight filtering through the blinds. Derek is too bleary to think of stopping her before she smacks the newspaper aside, and her hand descends on his bicep. Stiles is in Derek’s arms, and in the next blink he is not.

Lydia sounds too loud in the sudden absence of Stiles’ soothing reading. “Look.”

Derek looks at where Lydia is prodding him with a perfectly manicured finger. On his bicep is a small bloom of blackened veins.

“You aren’t better,” Lydia says. “The taint has just _moved_. Go see Deaton or else heal yourself, Derek.”

“It’s just a bruise.”

“And you say you’re not stupid.” Lydia rolls her eyes. “Whatever it is, heal it right now. Alphas can heal their wounds at will, so heal it. Heal yourself, Derek.”

Derek scowls up at her. “I can’t.”

“No _.”_ Lydia corrects him, _“_ You _won’t._ ” She lets out a long breath. “I don’t know why you insist on crippling yourself, but your masochism is hurting the pack, and we– they don’t enjoy pain like you seem to. You have to let it go. _Heal yourself, Derek._ ”

Derek doesn’t know what triggers it. Maybe it’s the grating silence that should have been filled with Stiles’ mindless chatter. Maybe it’s Lydia’s perfume, cloying like the smoke of incense. Maybe it’s the tone of Lydia’s voice, or the way she’s finally worked through his last nerve like the claymore through his tendons. Probably it’s because what she’s asking is just _too damn much_.

 _Heal yourself,_ she says, like it’s that easy. He’s lost everything, and now she’s making him – she’s making him lose _Stiles_ too?

His arm burns where the veins run black. The sudden heat of Lydia’s blood beneath his claws is nice. It feels like he’s anointing his good-as-new fingers, welcoming those too-clean digits back into the bloody fold. Derek doesn’t hear her scream – his ears are thick with the drumming of many hearts – but she must have because he’s being restrained.

Lydia is on the floor, her soft forearm torn open and leaking onto the hardwood. Erica has thrown herself across Derek’s back like she’s hoping her weight will crush Derek into the ground. Isaac and Boyd each grip one of Derek’s arms, their claws unsheathed in an effort to anchor him. Jackson stands between Derek and Lydia, on guard even as he helps Lydia hold her wound closed.

It’s all useless though.

Shifted as he is, Derek is twice the size of any contender in the room. Erica is a flea on his back. Isaac and Boyd are brambles that have caught his fur.

There’s a lot of yelling and screaming, but the voices are indistinct and meaningless. The blood accumulates under his claws. His mouth is dry and he thinks of wetting it too, but then there’s the scent of burnt flesh and wilted flowers and _Stiles_.

Stiles is there and his eyes gleam wetly but his cheeks are dry – the heat licking away the moisture before it can fall – and he is so pale and thin and unreal that Derek aches all over, the burn in his arm spreading like a cancer to his heart.

“Derek,” Stiles says, over and over. “I’m here. I’m here.” Stiles pushes gently against Derek’s chest until Derek falls back on the couch. Stiles guides Derek down until they’re lying together like parenthesis split from a single line.

“Stiles,” Derek groans. It hurts.

Stiles looks stricken, and his hands shoot out to clutch desperately at Derek’s face.

“Stay with me,” Stiles says.

 _Yes,_ Derek wants to say, but when he opens his eyes he is lying on the couch with a newspaper on his face.

Lydia is staring at him, her red hair flashing in the light filtering through the blinds. There is no one else in the room.  

       

* * *

 

He goes to see Deaton when his fingertips continue to itch with drying blood, regardless of the number of times he washes them.

Deaton begins pulling out jars of tincture and sticks of incense before Derek is even seated on the surgical table. Deaton looks at him the way Lydia does, like he knows Derek’s mind, knows exactly what Derek’s been seeing and why he’s here. Annoyingly, Deaton asks anyway, “Why are you here, Derek?”

“To get better.”

“To get better in what way?”

“Just. Better,” Derek grits out.

Deaton leans against the counter opposite Derek. “I need more than that, Derek. I can’t heal a wound I can’t see.”

Derek snorts. “You know why I’m here.”

“But do _you_ know why you’re here?”

They’re going in circles, and Derek would like to see how serene Deaton is when he gets strangled by a werewolf. Derek limits himself to a sub-vocal growl. “Yes.”

“Then tell me.”

“This taint in my veins, but also– I’ve been– I’ve been hallucinating or some shit, and I need to stop.” Derek digs his fingers into the underside of the surgical table. “Before I hurt someone,” he adds quietly.

“What happened in these hallucinations?”

“I attacked my pack,” Derek says. “And I keep dreaming about– about fire. And Stiles.” Derek swallows the bile rising in the back of his throat. “Ghosts don’t exist, but it’s like he’s with me all the time.”

“You’re awfully close-minded for a werewolf.” Deaton smiles wryly.

Derek scowls. “I’ll believe in ghosts when I am one.”

Deaton gives Derek one of those cryptic looks he hates. Then Deaton pushes himself off the counter and walks over to the materials he’s laid out on the counter. He coats the end of a stick of incense with a few drops of the tincture. He stands the incense up in a cup that’s half filled with some weird powder and hands it over to Derek.

The incense smells terrible, even unlit. The scent stings Derek’s nose like wolfsbane, but blunted by something wet and earthy. It’s familiar. Dirt and ashes and wilted flowers.

“This will stop the hallucinations?” Derek asks.

Deaton doesn’t answer. He says, “Your pack has been waiting for you for a long time.”

Derek doesn’t move. He looks at the incense, then back at Deaton. He opens his mouth to ask a question, but Deaton just smiles. “You know the answer,” Deaton says.       

 

* * *

 

Derek doesn’t know the answer. He doesn’t know what the fuck Deaton is talking about. He needs actual helpful directions; some real answers and real advice.

He didn’t take the Camaro to the clinic, and letting his feet wander on autopilot might not have been the best idea, seeing as he’s in the middle of the woods staring down at the ruins of his life. Again.

With the second burning, most of the house had been reduced to ashes. There had been so much ash that the basement was filled with a combination of ash and collapsed earth. What was left was cleared away because two tragedies seemed like enough to remind the townsfolk that the house was structurally unstable, highly flammable, and attractive to poor mischievous teens who were too often in the wrong place at the wrong time. All that’s left is scorched black ground dusted with layer upon layer of ash.

Still, Derek knows exactly where everything used to be. He walks soundlessly across the dirt where the porch steps should be. He crosses a threshold that isn’t there anymore. He walks on the memory of a hardwood floor, polished until the wood grain shone. He imagines the near-silent susurration of a rug woven with his family’s history, and feels warm, and sees light.   

Derek snarls, resisting the urge to snap the stupid magic toothpick in half. His hands shake with that constant undercurrent of pain he’s grown so familiar with. He practically punches the cup into the ash coating the blackened clearing, taking some satisfaction from violently nestling the cup in the ash so that the mysterious powder in the cup is level with the ground.

He’s probably doing whatever he’s supposed to be doing wrong, but it’s better than just standing there feeling like a bigger failure than he knows he already is. Everything he’s ever done has been wrong. All his wrong choices are wrong. All his right choices have _gone_ wrong, because clearly they _weren’t_ the right choices. He was a shitty Beta, and now he’s a shitty Alpha. He’s just a shitty person all around.

His family didn’t deserve to die like they did. Stiles didn’t deserve to die like he did. The only one who _did_ deserve it _didn’t die_. Derek doesn’t know why he’s still here. If there’s a higher power that wants him to suffer, he’s sure as hell suffering. If there isn’t a higher power – and Derek doesn’t think there is – then that just confirms that the source of all this horror is _him_.

Derek doesn’t need further proof of his despicable nature, but it’s there if he cares to look. Right here in his hesitance to do – whatever he’s supposed to do now.

If he does this, his pack will be safe from him. If he does this his pack will be safe from him, but Derek will truly, finally, lose Stiles. Stiles isn’t even really there, but Derek is goddamned selfish enough to cling to a fucking hallucination.

Derek shakes with the weight of it all. He deserves nothing good, but he still _wants_. He wants Stiles, and he wants Laura, and he wants Mom and Dad. Hell, he even wants Peter.

He used to do his math homework every night, here, on the floor next to the fireplace. He liked being surrounded by his family, even if it meant putting up with Laura using his back as a footrest while she sat in an armchair puzzling through Shakespeare.

Dad would come down the stairs after putting the babies to bed, and he would see Derek sprawled in front of the fire. If Derek was actually working and not trying to bite Laura’s toes off, Dad would bring them snacks. If they were scuffling, Dad would call Mom’s iron fist of discipline onto the scene. On those occasions, Peter would stick his head in to smirk and gloat about the double share of cookies he’d been gifted with as a result of their indiscretion.

Mom never said anything about Peter sneaking Derek and Laura some cookies anyway, even though she must have smelt the chocolate on their breaths.

Derek misses them all so much.

This kind of loss doesn’t fade, ever. He can _let it go_ with all his might, but the absence is a presence in itself, a solid empty space. Stiles is only a fresher wound on a bleeding back; the hallucination of him like an inadequate band-aid. But Derek still wants this. This small, small comfort.

“Derek,” Stiles says, and Derek looks over the cup to where Stiles kneels across from him, mirroring him.

“Stiles,” Derek whispers.

Stiles is still too pale and thin and frail, but there’s a fierceness to his face that only sharpens at the sound of Derek’s voice. Stiles’ eyes gleam with the reflected light of the setting sun, twin moons that make the hair stand up on Derek’s arms.

Derek’s awareness shrinks until it is only him and Stiles and the cup bracketed between their kneeling bodies.

“Derek,” Stiles says, “I know that you like to hoard pain like a bad addict, but it’s not all yours to carry.” Stiles reaches out to hold each of Derek’s hands in one of his own. Like this they make a circle with their arms. “Some of this is mine,” Stiles says, and there’s a sudden burn of intense pain in Derek’s bicep, hot needles sliding through his veins. Derek glances down and watches the taint in his arm drain slowly towards Stiles.

Derek tries to tug his hands free of Stiles’, but he can’t. Impossibly, Stiles’ grip is like stone despite the split skin of his burnt arm and the blood that drips slowly onto their thighs.

“You’ve carried a lot of pain for a long time,” Stiles continues, his words growing strained as the darkness in Derek’s veins seeps into Stiles’, “the kind of pain that can’t just be taken away. And I know it won’t just go away, _I know_ , but Derek– Derek, you have me. You have a _pack_ , people that care about you. Even if you feel like you don’t deserve this, _you have it,_ and one day you’ll see. You brought this pack together. You, Scott, Allison, Lydia, Jackson, Erica, Boyd, Isaac, and me. It’s earned. It’s good. It’s deserved.

“The lone wolf dies, but you’re not alone, and I won’t let you die, so please. Please don’t let yourself die. _Heal yourself, Derek_.”

Derek’s eyes snap to Stiles’. The air is thick with the smoke of wilted flowers. A wind picks up the ash that blankets the blackened ground, and it looks like thousands of moths floating up to encircle them. There is no wall of fire this time. The only flame is between them, balanced on the tip of the incense stick, and gleaming in the wetness of Stiles’ eyes.

“Stay with me,” says Stiles.

“Yes,” Derek says, and finally wakes up.    

        

  

**Author's Note:**

> CONCERN FOR IMPLIED (BUT NOT ACTUAL) CHARACTER DEATH WHICH MAY BE TRIGGERING. SPOILERS BELOW.
> 
> Derek believes that Stiles is dead, when in fact, Stiles is not dead. Derek is in an unconscious state.  
> Derek frequently has nightmares about the fire that he believes killed Stiles. There is a scene where Derek's fingers are chopped off and he severs a hunter's head. Derek's behaviour becomes aggressive and erratic, and his perception of reality distorts to the point where he imagines attacking Lydia and the pack, violently. Derek is visited by Stiles who convinces Derek to wake.
> 
> I am still choosing to not use the 'official character death warning' though, because I feel that by using it I would cement the ending in a way that it's not meant to be.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] As Everything Descends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/835771) by [Jinxy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxy/pseuds/Jinxy)




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